NNSA Blog

Sandia National Laboratories’ Cooperative Monitoring Center is celebrating its 20th anniversary of promoting the principles of cooperation and the value of technology in support of international security agreements.

Since it was established in 1994, the CMC has worked to address critical security issues by bringing together policy and technical experts from different nations.

About the photo:In this 1998 photo, Kent Biringer, manager of International Nuclear Threat Reduction, meets with visiting scholars from Pakistan and India at the Cooperative Monitoring Center. The two men were investigating missile transparency between their countries during a visit to the CMC.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has entered a contract with IBM to deliver a next-generation supercomputer in 2017. The system, to be called Sierra, will serve NNSA’s Advanced Simulation and Computing program.

Procurement of Sierra is part of DOE-sponsored Collaboration of Oak Ridge, Argonne and Lawrence Livermore national labs (CORAL) to accelerate the development of high performance computing. CORAL will result in delivery to each laboratory of a supercomputer expected to provide about five times the performance of today’s top systems.

Under the contracts, Livermore and Oak Ridge will work with IBM, NVIDIA and Mellanox to deploy systems of about 150 petaflops to advance science and ensure national security. Argonne is expected to finalize a contract at a later date.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Symposium on International Safeguards, which takes place every four years in Vienna, Austria, began Monday October 20 with a plenary session featuring remarks from IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano and a keynote address by Department of Energy / National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) Assistant Deputy Administrator for Nonproliferation and International Security Kasia Mendelsohn.

In her remarks to some 700 symposium participants, Ms. Mendelsohn complimented the IAEA for its efforts to implement strengthened safeguards to address ever-increasing challenges to the nonproliferation regime. “More than ever,” she stressed, “IAEA safeguards are an essential element of the nuclear nonproliferation regime and of international efforts to verify the peaceful uses of atomic energy.” Mendelsohn thanked the Secretariat for going to “extraordinary lengths over the last year to explain how safeguards implementation has evolved, particularly at the level of the state as a whole.”

While discussing the challenges posed by the greater availability of proliferation-sensitive information and the growing number of countries with nuclear activities, she encouraged symposium participants to consider and identify options to help the IAEA, as appropriate, find the best possible technologies, procedures, and practices for safeguards implementation. She emphasized that “nuclear nonproliferation is a global challenge and the entire global community has a major stake in maintaining the effectiveness and credibility of the international safeguards system.”

Noting that “the United States has long considered the international safeguards system to be a central pillar of the nuclear nonproliferation regime’s strategy for preventing the spread of nuclear weapons,” Mendelsohn talked in detail about U.S. contributions to the IAEA safeguards system, including the U.S. Support Program (USSP) for IAEA Safeguards and DOE/NNSA’s Next Generation Safeguards Initiative (NGSI).

In this context, she summed up her remarks by urging the assembled experts at the symposium to work together “to make real progress on promoting peaceful uses of nuclear energy, strengthening safeguards, and preventing proliferation.”

The Symposium featured more than 300 presentations, including 43 from DOE/NNSA headquarters and the National Laboratories. DOE/NNSA representatives also chaired or co-chaired seven technical sessions featuring topics such as nondestructive assay (NDA) measurements, training and education in nuclear nonproliferation and safeguards, new trends in the application of statistical methods for safeguards, challenges in spent fuel verification, and safeguards by design.

Click here to visit the 2014 IAEA Safeguards Symposium website, which includes a 6-minute video of conference highlights.

More than 65 contractor and federal employees from 20 organizations recently met at the Y-12 National Security Complex to share safety culture best practices and lessons learned. The two-day workshop featured more than two dozen presentations on creating and improving workplace safety culture, including sessions on developing monitoring panels, assessing performance, and improving trust and communication.

NPO and CNS sponsored the event, which drew participants from DOE, NNSA, the national labs (Lawrence Livermore, Oak Ridge, Sandia and Idaho), production and environmental management sites (Y-12, Pantex, Savannah River, Kansas City, Nevada, ETTP and WTP), local organizations (Isotek Systems and ORAU) and labor representatives from the Atomic Trades and Labor Council, International Guards Union of America and Knoxville Building and Construction Trades Council.

About the photoAdvisor Rizwan Shah and CNS Safety Culture Program Manager Paul Wasilko welcome participants to the best practices workshop held at the Y-12 National Security Complex.

Some 50 walkers representing Y-12 participated in The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Light The Night Walk held recently at the University of Tennessee’s Circle Park. This year marks the 10th year Y-12 employees have raised funds and shined a light on the importance of finding cures for and providing access to treatments for blood cancer patients. Y-12’s team is striving to meet its $20,000 goal, making the 10-year total more than $200,000. Currently, the team has raised more than $17,700. Consolidated Nuclear Services Mission Support Vice President Darrell Graddy (far right in photo) was the team management sponsor.

More than 30,000 people packed into AT&T Park recently for the San Francisco Bay Area Science Festival, a day of hands-on experiments, exhibits, games and shows.

The event was the culmination of the Bay Area Science Festival's week-long science festivities, which featured more than 100 fun, interactive science and technology events. During the successful event,Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory joined more than 150 exhibitors to bring science to the masses.

LLNL booth was in prime position to welcome visitors and drew in a constant crowd. Science enthusiasts, young and old, flocked to the LLNL booths to participate in "Fun with Science" experiments, test their knowledge with a Science Challenge Game and try to solve the energy crisis with the interactive electronic climate simulation.

Throughout the event, LLNL volunteers Nick Williams and Harold Rogers drew crowds with the Lab's popular "Fun With Science" presentation, translating topics like air pressure, chemical reactions and electricity into interactive experiments like "Elephant Toothpaste," "Marshmallow Man" and "Leaky Bottle."

Before the event, a team of bioengineers from LLNL's Center for Bioengineering fielded questions online about neural implants as part of a series of Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) events organized by the Bay Area Science Festival. The two-hour, live question-and-answer session drew more than 680 questions and answers, landing the thread on the homepage of Reddit.

About the photo: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist Harold Rogers' presentation on how to make elephant toothpaste was a crowd pleaser. See more photos.

Don Cook, deputy administrator for Defense Programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), visited Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) on Oct. 31 to address the staff in an all hands presentation and to present NNSA's Defense Programs Awards of Excellence.

"When I was here in 2012, I had some fairly sharp critiques to offer. When I came here in June, there had been great progress, and I'm seeing that again," Cook said. "I am very upbeat about the performance of this team at Livermore, and your role in the weapons program. The rate of change is good and there is a bright future."

Cook discussed a variety of topics, including the current state of the weapons program and current projects in that area; recent results at the National Ignition Facility, in areas such as strength, equation of state, X-ray scattering and compression of diamond; Livermore's leadership in additive manufacturing; and the current environment in Washington. D.C.

He offered both praise and encouragement to the gathered employees, telling the crowd that while much progress has been made, more remains.

"Some assembly is required," Cook said. "You have many of the pieces. My challenge to you is to really put them together."

After concluding his remarks, Cook honored 11 teams of Lab researchers and engineers with Defense Programs Awards of Excellence for work performed in 2013.

Congratulations to Shelley Turner, NNSA Deputy General Counsel, for being named 2014 Woman of the Year by National IMAGE Inc., a nonprofit advocacy organization focused on empowering Hispanics through leadership development.

Turner's award comes after more than 15 years of devoted service to the organization, volunteering in various capacities - including serving as the parliamentarian for the past 6 years. Turner attributes the ability to devote her time and energy in volunteer service to National IMAGE over the past several years to the whole-hearted support of the NNSA and the Office of the General Counsel.

In celebration of National Nuclear Science Week, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions employees worked with the University of South Carolina-Aiken's Ruth Patrick Science Education Center and the SRS Community Reuse Organization's Nuclear Workforce Initiative to share the fun side of science with area students.

Employees led area middle and high school students in a "Journey to the Center of the Atom," guiding them as they explored atomic structure and assembled an Isotope Discovery Kit. National Nuclear Science Week is celebrated annually across the country to encourage and bring awareness of nuclear technology and the many careers available within nuclear technology and other high-tech industries.